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Q
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Infidelity’s Role in Divorce Cases
EXPLAINED BY SAMUEL J. HAIS AND SUSAN M. HAIScustody time, even though he was an executive who typically would
not get that kind of time. He walked away well financially, and without
changing his lifestyle.
We righted a wrong, which was important to our client. We did the
right thing. It would have been far easier to make the typical kind of
deal and get a cookie-cutter result. We were not concerned with our
popularity but with fighting for our client.
We are a firm devoted entirely to family law because it is complex.
General practice firms are not equipped to handle the emotional needs
of clients or their children. We have created a firm where our clients
feel comfortable during stressful and emotional times, where we have
a ready list of experts in case clients need psychological assistance
or help with their children, and where we work to forge agreements
that meet each family’s specific needs.
We have eight attorneys aided by experienced legal assistants and
other attentive support. We’ve served a large number of distinguished
families in a confidential and comfortable setting for many years,
assisting and advising them to insure the best possible position to
negotiate a settlement or present a case to court. The postscript to
this case is that the opposing attorney was disheartened enough to
have someone else in her firm try the case. As for our client, who
could never quite handle the love/hate relationship with his wife, he
eventually reunited with her. And all was well that ended well.What is an example of a challenging case you have tried that dealt
with the issue of infidelity? I represented a husband, who was a very
successful business executive and a very high wage earner. He had
come from nothing and was self-made, growing up with a single
mother. The most important thing to him was his children. His wife
was what some refer to as a “stay-at-home mom,” but the problem
was that instead of staying at home, she was straying from home. She
had many affairs while he was working hard to provide for the fam-
ily, and he finally caught her in bed with another man when the kids
were there. The amazing thing was that she denied it, even though
he saw it, and she continued to deny it until we put on 10 witnesses.
Custody and the wife’s affairs—what we call “conduct”—were not
the only issues. The wife was demanding significant monies from her
husband. Also, even though our client was in higher management,
his job situation was tenuous. He also had substantial debt and a
large mortgage, and he could not sell the house easily to eliminate
the mortgage. It was difficult to figure out how to divide the property,
because our client couldn’t pay the wife what she wanted—nor would
he, since he was angry about her conduct, which had broken up the
marriage in the first place.
We tried the case for many days. My client didn’t want the mar-
riage to end but couldn’t live with his wife and her infidelity. He also
wanted to sustain the marriage for the kids’ sake and wanted as much
time with them as possible. The case was further complicated by an
unrealistic and difficult opposing attorney.How was the case resolved? In the end, our client did get the custody
he wanted, which was one-half of the time, based upon his work
schedule. He paid a very small amount to the wife, and he stayed in
the marital home. What is important to note is that we managed to
take a stay-at-home mother case and give the father one-half of theHais, Hais & Goldberger222 S. Central Avenue, Ste. 600, St. Louis, MO 63105
314-326-4885 | hhg-law.comSPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTIONPICTURED, FROM LEFT: Samuel J. Hais, Susan M. Hais